Reflections on a Tesla protest in Waikiki

The Setting

There is an ongoing twice weekly protest in front of the Tesla show room in Waikiki, the main tourist hub on the island of Oahu. I’ve attended twice so far. Hearing the talking points from the people who confront the protest has given me a sense of the current state of mind for an average member of Trump’s loyal base.

At the last protest I attended on Wednesday, April 16th sidewalk traffic seemed a bit thinner than two weeks prior. I’ve read that tourism to the US from other countries is falling off as people see the inherent xenophobia and bigotry of Trump’s policies and consider the US more and more just a gross, oppressive, and potentially dangerous place to visit. Biden’s policy of full support for Israeli genocide against Palestinians didn’t help endear the US to the world either.

While articles I find online say that Hawaii tourism in recent months is holding steady but not increasing, it appeared on this day that most of the tourists we were seeing were white and from the US Continent. (Hawaii is technically occupied by the US which is another story you should know about). To be clear this is not meant as a judgment on white or any tourists for visiting Hawaii or anywhere else. But there is a correlation between middle aged white men especially, with some disposable income for vacations, and Trump’s base in the petty bourgeois/small business class types statistically speaking. So the people glaring at us on this day could be a cross section of a US white MAGA demographic.

First Contact

Immediately upon getting off the bus and walking through the International Market Place I saw a protester I recognized and sat with him on a bench. As we talked we were approached by a loner looking dude in his early 50s who asked what my sign said. Its a joke about burning Teslas. He looked at it and said he “agreed” that it was terrible to destroy Teslas, adding that those who do so must be mentally ill. I just responded with “ok” because I didn’t want to debate this fool. He went on and on with what, by the end of it (and he would visit the protest line with more later) amounted to a near complete check list of MAGA zombie talking points. Because he wouldn’t shut up, I just started saying “of course you think that” and then asking him if he liked this or that policy. Some condensed highlights:

“So how’s Trump doing on Social Security, you feel pretty good about that?”

“Yeah, I love it! He’s making sure people who deserve it will get it!”

“Uh huh, and howbout what DOGE is doing to gut basic essential social infrastructure like medicare and medicaid for millions of people?”

“You’ve got to cut waste and fraud and they have to take apart the communist system that’s in place to save it. Public workers don’t have a right to lifelong jobs if they don’t do anything!”

“You feel pretty good about deporting American citizens to foreign gulags with no due process?” [Here I have to explain I was thinking of Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was “legally in the US” and that I oppose all capitalist national borders and all criminalizing of migrants but that in the heat of this dumb debate that came out wrong.]

“Yes, they did arrest and imprison people on January 6th, that was terrible.” [Barf]

“How do you feel about Trump justifying and supporting Putin’s invasion?”

“I love Putin!”

“Of course you do, these views all go together.”

He started smugly lecturing us about how tragic it was that we were so duped by fake news we couldn’t see reality anymore, which was rich. It was very “mirror world,” not in the 2023 Naomi Klein sense but in the 2018 Comrade Motopu sense in which capitalist and fascist positions are presented as being in defense of reason, the working class, and human decency.

I asked him where he got his information from, which surprised him visibly, as if that should not be an issue.

“What, Alex Jones? Fox News? Breitbart?”

He sort of nodded along listening and then just said “Newsmax” as an example. I guess he thought of that as a legitimate source. If you are not in the US you might not know it’s an extreme Right cable channel, far to the Right of Fox News, far more fascist and alt-Right aligned, with far more leeway to editorialize absolutely crazy talking points and lies.

We decided to leave the bench and go out to the sidewalk protest but the guy was yelling after us about how glad he was that Trump was destroying the Department of Education and I questioned back what he was going to replace it with “White Christian Nationalist Home Schooling?” and he muttered something about how it was going back to the states.

The Protest Line

As I mentioned above, the foot traffic was largely white tourists and the level of hostility to our presence seemed high on this day. Lots of side eye, snarling, thumbs down, and nasty comments from this crowd. Some support too for sure, and each day will be different, but I was picking up on a more negative vibe than my previous visit.

There has been a pretty consistent presence of Elon fans confronting the Tesla protesters. There’s even a video posted online showing a local pro MAGA guy who whips up tourists to chant “Elon saved the astronauts!” This guy, like most MAGA folks, is heard to complain about how the anti-Elon folks are violent and how they are abusive. Similarly the man who greeted me at the start of the day kept bringing it back to patriots being oppressed by the censorship and violence of the Left. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t such a widespread and effective talking point utilized by fascists.

Two weeks prior, another white guy in his forties with two of his kids in tow approached our protest line and started lecturing us about how stupid it was to protest Elon Musk. “He’s the single largest producer of Electric Vehicles in the world! Don’t you want to save the planet?” I mean, ha ha! There was simply no time to counter lecture him about how making millions of private low occupancy vehicles is not the cure to climate change, or how any system of transit under capitalism will reproduce the logic of externality and pollution in the pursuit of the bottom line. This is not to say stop gap measures to reduce harm are inherently bad, but that they don’t begin to seriously address the issues, including fossil fuel dependence which producing EV cars to compete on the market doesn’t really deal with. Nor does that address the social issues around sources of minerals for the batteries EV’s use, etc.

So I just asked the guy why he supports Elon attacking unions and workers and his mass firings through DOGE. Here he shot back with something I’ve heard a lot from right wing “debaters” while never knowing if they’re being honest or not. “I was a union shop steward!” he said. “Do you know what unions do to people? It makes them all lazy!” Being lazy means you don’t participate in your own exploitation enthusiastically enough and then thank the boss and ask for more.

He walked away looking dejected and confused. He might not have expected such an interaction on vacation but he approached us. Another protester mentioned that, before I entered the conversation, he had been telling them about the dangers of vaccines.

There it is

Back to the most recent Wednesday, the Newsmax loving guy who confronted us inside the International Market Place was back and yelling at the protesters. As I saw him I began to tune into his voice over the street noise and general ambient sound. He was now accusing us of “hating gentiles” and that’s why we hate Elon and Western Civilization, and great technology. I told him “Finally! You got to your main point. You’re a white supremacist. You’re an anti-Semite!”

Now crossing the street he shouted back at us “I’m not a white supremacist! You’re anti-gentile! You hate America! You hate us!”

“Oh, us! Real Americans. White Americans! You’re a white nationalist! Get outta here!” I clapped back. But he was crossing the street. He kept yelling about anti-gentile something or other and then faded into the distance and we didn’t see him again.

What is Trump’s base telling us?

The comments from two individuals above represent the general tone of pro-Elon, pro-MAGA talking points heard from opposing passers by, which is why I have a sense these views are very common among them. There is no concern for immigrants, civil rights, workers, or even concern for “their” issues like rule of law, the Constitution, etc. There’s a deep disgust at anyone who would dare question Elon Musk’s achievements, views, or actions. They feel the need to blurt out how great Trump is, “best president ever” being a common refrain.

And that’s what I’m reporting back about. I still think Trump failing miserably and making everything worse might translate into his supporters shifting against him and MAGA in upcoming elections. Trump massively fucking up social security or medicare, or tanking the economy generally so that basic goods and services become far more expensive could turn a significant portion of his voters away. Even if they don’t vote against him (third term anyone?) or other Republicans, they might just stay home, which could at least dislodge MAGA representatives.

But the fascist Pandora’s Box is well opened by this point. Beyond possible electoral outcomes, it appears that MAGA voters fully believe the propaganda talking points they swim in every day on cable and internet media. At least to the point that you hear it consistently from them in everyday encounters. The MAGA mobilization worked and all the scapegoating and bigotry at its heart is now becoming policy, law, and action as Trump’s administration uses state power. After decades of relentless propagandizing, local organizing, media capture, and massive funding from far Right, and lately even center and liberal oligarchs, they are carrying out fascist, racist, anti-worker policies, and they are steam rolling over the Left in every corner of the US. Even if MAGA people don’t actually believe in the things they say, they do believe that they must keep saying them and supporting Trump. The MAGA cadre are now at the helm of actual state power where they are flushing out bureaucrats and functionaries and replacing them with MAGA loyalists, a.k.a fascists.

Lenin said that “every cook can govern.” The MAGA inversion is "every kook can govern” and it’s now fully realized. John Birch Society ideologues, Fascists, Covid Denialists, White Christian Nationalists, Fox News hosts, Professional Wrestling magnates, TESCREAL crazies, and alt-Right social influencers take their chainsaws to the basic infrastructure of the US government so as to run it all even more like a business owned by them and a small group of friends.

None of what I write about the enthusiasm Trump’s base has for his acceleration of authoritarian bigotry and social violence is meant to argue for some imagined good old days of normal and fair capitalist governance. This is more a temperature check on hardcore MAGA and an observation that these are not people won over by promises of free college, universal healthcare, or economic justice. They are on fire for full fascism, and they are legion.

Comrade Motopu, April 18th, 2025